اربع سنين طالب جامعي، اتعلمت فيهم ايه ؟

المادة الواحدة في الترم عبارة عن 12 محاضرة كل محاضرة 3 ساعات وسكاشن على جمب. بس انسى السكاشن شوية كدة وفكر معايا، تخيل انك حتاخد ال12 محاضرة بدل مرة في الاسبوع، لأ مرة في اليوم… لو قلنا الاسبوع 6 ايام يبقى كدة حتخلص المادة في اسبوعين، صح ؟

كلام جميل. قول بقى انك حتاخد 3 مواد، يعني 3 محاضرات كل يوم، 6 ايام في الأسبوع. كدة في اسبوعين تبقى خلصت 3 مواد. طيب المفروض عشان تتخرج من الكلية تاخد حوالي ما بين 5 او 6 مواد كل ترم، خليهم 5، يعني حوالي 40 مادة. كدة يبقى حتخلصهم في اد ايه ؟ 3 مواد كل اسبوعين، يعني 6 مواد في الشهر، 40 على 6 فيها ال … ثانية اجيب الالة الحاسبة؛ اصلي مش حافظ جدول الضرب … الظاهر 6 شهور وشوية، قول 7 شهور. ده من غير راحة خالص وتنزل 6 ايام في الاسبوع كل يوم 9 ساعات محاضرات غير المواصلات…

تخيل بقى انك عاوز تدرس كل مواد الرياضيات بتاعة قسم رياضة في كلية علوم وكمان كل مواد الفيزياء اللي في كلية علوم. معرفش بصراحة هم كام كورس بس الأكيد ان في مواد كتيرة مشتركة بينهم وبين بعض وبين علوم الحاسب. المهم لو انت قررت تدرس كل المقررات ديه، ممكن الموضوع يندمج والحاجات المشتركة تتلاشى وتقضيها كلها في اقل من 21 شهر؛ قول مثلا 16 شهر بس.

برضه مكملناش 4 سنين. طب فاضل ايه، قول انك حتاخد كل مواد تمهيدي ماجستير في علوم الحاسب والرياضيات والفيزياء، تمهيدي الماجستير سنة، يعني المجموع حوالي 30 مادة لو مفيش مكرر، يبقى كدة حوالي 5 شهور. كدة المجموع كلة 21 شهر.

طب وبعدين ؟ 21 شهر يعني حتى مكملناش سنتين… ده حتى اللي بيتجند ظابط بيقضي وقت اكتر من كدة (وبرضه شغال 6 ايام في الاسبوع!)…

اقولك في السنتين اللي بعدهم قضيها في رسالة ماجستير بس تكون تقيلة، منت دارس 3 تخصصات تقال اهو…

وكدة بقوا 4 سنين،،،

بس اربع سنين عن اربع سنين تفرق، مبروك عليك الشهادة يا خريج يا جديد ….

High quality books for each student in university; costs ?

Take for instance a book such as "The Symmetries of Things". Such a book with lots of figures, colors, and heavy, shiny paper, is intriguing for students. A student would hold it in his hands, feel its weight, perceive the color figures, and most importantly, feel the value of the book. This might be one possible incentive for him to spend more time with the book, not just catching up with lectures but also discovering what's there in later, more advanced chapters.

I was wondering why didn't we have such books in university (a state university in Egypt). As a matter of fact we did, but only cheap photocopies of them, with cheap paper. This was due to the high prices of books an average student would not be able to afford. Some initiatives was there (By Dr.Waleed Yousef, as far as I can recall) to encourage students to buy a book and sell it later for half price for the next class, effectively paying only half price. I've also heard from a friend (I think it was Khaled Essawy), that in Kuwaiti schools (not universities), students get a high quality book at the beginning of the year and return it after the year ends, in perfect condition, for the next class. If it was not in perfect condition the student may be required to pay.

Another solution is to activate the role of university's library (which I've only seen once during my 4 years of undergrad!). A student may go there with some study mates (3 to 4) and study together from the same book. The library isn't just a collection of books and scholarly articles but also a meeting room and a place for concentration, that's what I've discovered after travelling and seeing other universities*. It also encourages team work and group study where people can find all the resources they need around them.

However this wasn't what I had in mind when I started this post. I actually was thinking how much would it cost us to buy each student in university the books he needed, in high quality. Let's assume that a high quality printing of a book with colors and heavy paper is 400 LE. In my undergraduate faculty we have 1200 students (300 students for 4 classes). Assuming each student needs 10 books per academic year, then that's 1200*400*10 = 4.8 million.

That's indeed a large number so we may need some optimization a la Kuwaiti model. Say that we bought those books once and then students pass them to the next class. Say that 10% of those books are in unacceptable condition (torn, having writings IN them, or lost), so after paying the initial 4.8 million once, we only need to pay 480,000 LE per year to buy a replacement. However a student who has his book in an unacceptable state must pay the full price (to discourage stealing and encourage him to take care of his books). But assume 10% of them fail to pay (for one reason or another), so we will only need to pay 48,000 per year.

On the other hand a student who buys a photocopied book may pay up to 50 LE per book. So he may be willing to pay 40 LE for a high quality printing (although a used book). This multiplied by each student, each year, actually sums up to 48,000 LE, which exactly covers the costs of lost books ! So here we go, we only need 4.8 million to start, and we need nothing more to sustain it :) (except if we suddenly change all our text books, which is far from happening).

* Not to mention the RFID gate to prevent people from stealing books while not intimidating them away. Nor the barcode-based fully automated borrowing system...

** The article was lost after completing, so I wrote it again. The original one was better.

3D without glasses for more than one viewer, with eye tracker

I think the title and the image says it all. However I'll have spill some details out for myself because I might forget what I was thinking. The thing is, having multiple viewers, is just a matter of solving a system of equations. Such that every viewer's eye will see certain pixels. With eye tracking we can control the blinds accordingly, up to a fixed number of viewers. The engineering factor of how to implement those blinds may be regarded as layering several blinds, those same ones used for one viewer 3D glassless stereoscopy.

Generalization of quantum computing ?

This is not particularly related to quantum computing itself but rather to the notion of extending the manipulating a single value to manipulating a linear combination of such values, having the combinations denote the amplitude of measurement of a single value. One extension approach would be to consider non-linear combinations, but that's not what I mean here. I am asking what if this was generalized somehow to the linear combinations of such linear combinations ? What is the possible operations we could do in a manner similar to that of quantum computing and what useful outcomes would that mean to us ? Quantum computing allowed things not thought to be possible like sub-linear search complexity (Grover's algorithm) and others like Shor's algorithm. What would further generalizations like the proposed one allow us to do that we didn't think was possible with quantum computing ? Another research direction I may want to pursue after PhD en shaa Allah =)